X60 overheating with 7.1

[George Neville-Neil]

On Jan 14, 2009, at 13:19 , Alexandre Sunny Kovalenko wrote:
> 1.83 GHz dualcore CPU, 3GB of RAM and 160GB of 5400RPM disk to be able
> to run at the top performance within 4 lbs package for any protracted
> period of time. I am quite happy with it doing -STABLE buildword under
> hour-and-a-half and re-encoding DVD movies at ~250fps. Or building
> OpenOffice.org under two days ;)
>

Well performance wise it's fine, I just got worried when the heat  
bounce around
so much.  The one worrying thing is that with 7.1 RELEASE this does  
not happen.
So something, either in the kernel, or my configuration files,  
changed.  I had
a mergemaster issue that I thought was between 7.1 STABLE -> CURRENT  
but perhaps
it happened the first time I updated from 7.1 RELEASE.  I know this  
because I
had problems with an unrelated part of the system (wireless) that a  
mergemaster
run on CURRENT fixed.


> Judging by "2000/Something" you have mentioned below, I suspect not.
>

Well, we'll know tomorrow.
>

> Just out of curiosity -- what are you using to visualize this? I was
> tempted a few times to put something together, but never really sat  
> down
> to do it.
>

Nothing fancy:

while 1
sysctl dev.acpi_ibm.thermal
sleep 3
end

>> It NEVER gets down to 40 except when I turn it on.  At idle the tz0
>> and tz1 are
>> 60 and 62 respectively.
> I shall turn off powerd and Cx levels later today and see what I get
> than.
>

OK, thanks.
>>>
>>> Are you setting Cx levels in rc.conf?
> There are opinions whether doing C3 on one core (as I do) gains you
> anything, but, I believe, there is general consensus about C2. In my
> case, it seems to improve both battery life and heat dissipation.
>

OK, I will that tonight.

>> I think I have one higher level, 2000/something at the start.  I'll
>> look tonight
>> or tomorrow.
> That, likely means 2GHz processor, and AFAICR 64-bit capable to boot.

Hmm. I'll have to check.

Thanks again,
George